Topping in killing blows is more useful than topping in DPS as a mara anyways

2.5K is not achievable by "rolling your face on the keyboard" (at least not with most melee specs), but it is quite possible with full gear and decent play. Pushing up DPS is really all about maintaining time on target, using an ideal ability priority, and getting good actions per minute (APM). Most mediocre players lose DPS by allowing others to kite them, by using abilities in the wrong sequence, and by not facing or losing track of their target. I know because after layoffs and when I do not sleep enough I find my play level dropping due to these factors. My average 2-3K DPS suddenly drops into the 1-1.8K range.

My opinion is that the 105% accuracy does improve sustained damage, but getting it hurts burst a little as you are going to give up crit or power to get it. The difference either way is not huge though, so I think you can justify going either way depending on playstyle. Personally I prefer 0 accuracy.

The only global healing nerf that should be considered at all, and I am still not sure it would be a good idea, is to increase the strength of the trauma debuff. This also would have minimal effect on PvP and would allow smaller adjustments in heal strength than the OP's suggestion which seems more than a little heavy handed. Just as an aside, I would prefer it if healers functioned such that almost all heals were HoT's that needed to be refreshed only once in a while, there was one or two big nuke heals with substantial cooldowns, and healers spent most of their time using damage abilities. Played a game designed like that previously and it was one of my favorite PvP experiences.

Personally I think the real issue is the power of the combination of guard + healing. I really think the guard mechanic should be weakened in PvP to make a tank or DPS about equal in a 4 man comp. Right now it is exceedingly difficult to win with 3 DPS and a healer against 1 tank, 2 DPS, 1 healer comps. I think if guard were functioning ideally this would not be the case. Nerfing guard would also make stalemates much less frequent. Team ranked has been very stalemate heavy since 8v8 team ranked and continues to be now unless one team is much better than the other. Reducing the effectiveness of guard, even a little, would eliminate this. Sorc healers are a completely different issue but probably are overtuned right now and most likely need an "adjustment".

I think I had an arena with you Wednesday night on my sentinel. You and I did fairly well, but we had a 60K health sentinel that managed 29 DPS for the two rounds. Considering they had a sorc healer and we had none, I think we did well to record two kills in the second round and one in the first.

I'd agree with 2.10 balance being the best class balance we have seen. Although balance has generally been the best at the end of patch cycles and more screwed in the beginning of the next one. 3.x just never really achieved the level of balance seen late in the previous patch cycles in my opinion. I've been advocating in several threads swapping phase walk from sorc to merc, and swapping the jet away reverse charge to sorc. Would be a needed nerf to sorc kiting while buffing merc and giving them the focus fire escape they sorely need.

I've thought since the inception of 4.0 that bioware screwed up the new abilities. Thought that sorc should have the reverse leap and merc should have phase walk. Would give merc a response to stun lock it sorely needs and would remove a little bit of what makes sorc overpowered right now.

I've actually found a pretty strong PvP oriented guild on pub side of harbinger. We were running 3 four man groups last night and won about 80% of our matches. That said, randoms on pub side can be outright terrible.

Absolutely correct. I was playing my vanguard tank with a guild 4 man group this past Sunday. 4 straight matches I was 3rd on my team in damage and DPS. Only the two other DPS in my pre-made beat me for damage, and in two of those matches I was the only tank and our healer was the only healer. The fact that 4 other DPS spec players could not top my damage is the problem. No excuse for that happening. Not really an issue in my opinion. There are plenty of bad players on both side, and as a player who primarily plays pub side on harbinger, I think it is safe to say that scrub factor is high on both factions.

On an annihilation/watchman mara/sent it can be done with a level 20+ companion and 204 PvP gear, and is not particularly hard to do if you are interrupting the right stuff and moving out of the puddles. Also need to make sure to keep the absorbs up for the sun blasts or whatever they are. But basically, if you are doing everything correctly it is pretty easy to do solo.

For PT only rail shot is really affected by it. For merc railshot and boltstorm are affected as is their instant that can proc an instant tracer missile, and missing means no instant tracer. So it's pretty good against mercs. OK against PT's, but usually could better be used on something else.

Funny, I enjoy arenas. Since I usually queue with a 4 man group now it's the one time I am guaranteed to have good team mates.

Also note that pushing crit past 40% does not give great dividends. You might actually see better benefit with one or two crit augments, and the rest in power.

I really think the latest set of nerfs was almost exclusively PvE driven. It's the only way to explain the entire breath of what was nerfed. And Slingers/snipers were nerfed by the same amount as AP, so I don't see how you can say they are Ok and AP is not. Annihilation also had a substantial, but far from crippling nerf. And all they did to AP was bring it in line with every other surge boost in the game.

I really think sorc would be close to balanced in these areas if you simply took away phase walk, gave backward leap, and gave merc phase walk instead of leap. Would give merc the oh **** button it has been lacking, and would significantly reduce Sorc mobility/survivability without nerfing it into the ground.

Immortal is actually an average at best 1v1 spec unless you gear with high health offensive stat mods, then it becomes above average. To beat a sorc 1v1 you really need to be using at least two of the utilities that allow you to break roots/give knockback immunity, and need to consider the cleanse on ED or the extended duration of saber reflect (and you need to sorc to be stupid and try to continue to DPS you through it). Otherwise the sorc can frequently just kite you to death, which is what any decent DPS sorc should try to do. You do have some tools to deal with them, but they have more to deal with you.

That guy was on my solo ranked team for three straight rounds in season 4 And he was not even the worst player I had in those rounds.

Donna had some really brilliant ideas on how to balance out the healing classes in another one of these nerf sorc healing threads. Too bad BW would have to sort through so much BS just to tease out something useful like that. My one suggestion (that does nothing to balance healing output and thus has minimal effect on PvE) is to give sorcs the reverse leap and give phase walk to mercs (while obviously taking away the ability from the other class).

And clicker hacks at that.

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I think you are on the right track here. One other thing I would add is that it is quite possible to practice movement while doing PvE. I run daily quests for extra credits gearing up, and you can practice movement in these by moving through your target and practice quickly turning and strafing so you can keep on target. This somewhat approximates the kind of position changes you see in PvP, and it's not like dropping your DPS while practicing will hurt you on those quests.

It was different, and class balance was actually worse. For much of the early run of that game (the only part with multiple well populated servers) combat was dominated by one tank, one melee DPS, one ranged DPS, and one healer. And classes between factions were not exact mirrors causing all kinds of problems. On another note, I find class balance to be slightly better now than in the 3.0 patch cycle. Just worse than at the end of the 3.X patches. Kind of sad they always take a step back on balance when they increase the level cap, but balance will probably improve again with a patch cycle or two. And one other thought. How much better would balance have been if merc/mando got phase walk, and sorc/sage got the reverse leap?

There are a crapload of snipers and gunslingers in mid/high warzones right now on harbinger. Played a match this past weekend that had 4 gunslingers and 3 snipers in it. Give it till mid patch cycle and the FOTM'ness of the class will be evident.